REIHAN SALAM: Make “Non-Profit” Colleges Accountable, Too:

Curbing the abuses of this sector could do some good. But career training programs represent a small subset of the higher education universe. If we take a somewhat wider view, it seems pretty puzzling that, say, business or engineering majors at four-year colleges and universities aren’t being treated as enrollees in vocational programs.

Why not? Given the epidemic of underemployment among recent college graduates, it might make sense to apply the same standard to all post-secondary institutions, not just those that are explicitly labeled career training colleges.

Steve Gunderson, president of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, the trade association that represents the for-profit higher education sector, observes in a tart press release that “if the regulation were applied to all of higher education, programs like a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University, a law degree from George Washington University Law School and a bachelor’s degree in social work from Virginia Commonwealth University, would all be penalized.”

My reply to Gunderson would be that, well, yes, let’s penalize these programs too. It makes perfect sense to establish a regulatory floor to protect consumers from the least effective post-secondary programs, whether they’re at vocational schools or standard-issue colleges and universities.

Indeed.